Opponents say Toronto city council’s decision to create optional 50-metre bubble zones restricting protests around some institutions is “shocking,” goes further than originally proposed and could leave the city open to legal challenges.
The bylaw, which passed at a council meeting on Thursday, will allow places of worship, schools and child care centres to request protesters be barred from city property — such as sidewalks and roads — in a 50-metre zone around their facilities.
Louise Smith, a co-founder of the Coalition for Charter Rights and Freedoms which brought together the group of protesters, said city councillors “disrespected” the public consultation process by passing the bylaw. “They told us that consultation was going to inform their decisions, and then they basically ran right over [that],” she said.
However, the majority of respondents to a city-led public survey were against the zones, with 63 per cent saying they were either "strongly unsupportive" or "somewhat unsupportive" to Toronto adopting a bylaw similar to other municipalities.
Not only did councillors vote to expand the size of bubble zones, but they also “stripped away some of the safeguards” that would have prevented institutions from “abusing” the bylaw, Smith said.
Smith said the right to protest must be protected because “that's how positive social change happens,” and religious institutions shouldn’t have special status that protects them from public demonstrations.